The Timestop D-20 is Virtually as Good as Rolling Cube in D&D

The Timestop D-20 is my favourite piece of gaming gear this 12 months. It’s a watch that tells the time and pretends to roll cube. That’s it. It doesn’t have to do any greater than that. It received’t assist me roll higher in any sport of Dungeons & Dragons or different TTRPG, and it may’t exchange actual cube. The $160 D-20 can also be an costly, restricted system that’s not good for each sport. Regardless of all that, I’d put on it earlier than some other costly smartwatch.

Tabletop RPG gamers are eager to not belief know-how. They’re not Luddites. As an alternative of lugging sufficient rulebooks to fill a cargo ship, they convey their laptops to the desk. Cube aren’t only a device for RPGs; they’re an emblem. They characterize the passion’s love of communal storytelling and theater of the thoughts. 

I personal a metric ton of cube already. The D-20 watch would appear, maybe, extraneous, if not sacrilegious. I took it round PAX Unplugged, a gaming conference in Philadelphia, for 2 days, bringing it out for board video games and RPGs alike. I needed to be the one participant on the desk who always stated, “Oh, I’ve a watch that I’m utilizing. I’m rolling with this doohickey.”

Some received’t belief it, although the light people operating video games had been too type to chide me. However you possibly can inform by the seems you get from strangers that all of them puzzled if I used to be dishonest. I used to be studying off numbers from a watch. Did I actually roll a important success, or was I bullshitting? 

That didn’t matter throughout a session of the fashionable Cthulhu-conspiracy sport Delta Green. I by no means have nice luck in video games. In a 3 and a half-hour session, I succeeded in solely a single roll on a D100. My character, a poor sap who labored as a claims analyst for the Federal Emergency Administration Company, obtained shot point-blank within the chest whereas attempting to smash an eldritch-infused particle accelerator. My watch rolled above an 86 on my Dodge test. The GM rolled a ten on his injury. I used to be lifeless instantly. You actually ought to play Delta Inexperienced. 

The D-20 doesn’t have a cube icon for a D100, although you possibly can entry it by one of many two modes accessible with one of many buttons on the aspect. In any other case, it may roll a D4 up by a D20 straight from the primary display screen. Watching the little numbers dance for a millisecond earlier than touchdown on a quantity is extremely satisfying. 

However the watch received’t work effectively for a lot of trendy RPGs with long-eschewed D&D cube mechanics. I’m an enormous fan of the post-Powered by the Apocalypse methods for story-focused video games. I’m at present operating a sport of The Wildsea with my residence group. At PAX, I performed a session of CBR+PNK, a sport made for one-shots utilizing the cube mechanics pulled straight from Blades in the Dark. You roll a number of D6s in that sport, on the lookout for the best end result. A 1-3 is a failure, a 4 and 5 leads to successful with problems, whereas a 6 is a pure success. The D-20 watch enables you to roll a number of cube, however solely so as to add them up. If you wish to roll a cube pool, you roll it repeatedly, hoping you bear in mind your outcomes.

Many board video games incorporate cube straight into the setting and theme. I performed Wyrd Video games’ Vagrantsong, a sport about bringing humanity again to the souls of lifeless passengers on a ghost practice. Vagrantsong refers back to the cube as “bones,” a phrase so becoming that utilizing a digital cube curler can be anathema. 

The D-20 isn’t a stand-in for cube, but it surely has the guts of them. It’s an old-school system. It tells you the time and date whereas the cube curler is all the time on-screen. There’s a button to light up the digital show in a wealthy, orange glow.

Devin Montgomery, the system’s lead designer, advised me the watch is meant to emulate the wearables of the late Nineteen Seventies when the primary D&D boxed units hit the scene. I really like the truth that I by no means have to fret about charging it like my Apple Watch Ultra. The watch band with the D-20 feels safe round my wrist with its easy loop band hitch.

What’s most annoying concerning the system is its value. The metallic body feels premium, however for $160, it’s doubtlessly over 16 occasions the price of your fundamental set of cube. Some variations with out the steel body will value nearer to $100. Even that’s dear for one thing resembling an old-school Casio with a really particular use case.

I ended my PAX Unplugged run quick. A foul selection of meal over the weekend left me wracked with the worst meals poisoning of my life. I wanted to take away the watch from my wrist to maintain it out of the road of fireplace. Per week has handed, and I preserve sporting it. It’s an emblem of my favourite passion. And whereas I’m not nerd sufficient to tie my cube bag round my neck, I’m to randomly roll a D20 on my wrist when no person’s trying.